SC reduces ex UP Chief Secretary’s jail term to 2 years

Lucknow/New Delhi, Aug 2 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Wednesday reduced to two years the jail term of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Neera Yadav in a Noida land allotment scam and disproportionate assets case.

She was sentenced to three years in jail by the Allahabad High Court in November 2012. On Wednesday, a bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R. Banumathi reduced the quantum of sentence to two years.

Yadav, the first woman Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh, was CEO and Chairperson of Noida Authority between 1994 and 1995. She was elevated as Chief Secretary in 2005 by then Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, a post she held for two years, before taking voluntary retirement.

The Noida Industrialist Association had in 1997 filed a case against Yadav in the apex court, following which a Central Bureau of Investigation probe began in 1998.

The CBI probed 36 matters related to plot allotment by Neera Yadav and another IAS official Rajeev Kumar. A chargesheet was filed against the two in 2002.

Yadav had later surrendered before the CBI court in Ghaziabad and was sent to the Dasna prison.

The Supreme Court also upheld the two-year jail term awarded to Rajiv Kumar, a former IAS officer, in the same case.